Legends of Tomorrow 4x01-05

I don’t think I’ve ever written about Legends of Tomorrow before, so let me start this review with a little confession: it is my favourite Arrowverse show, and no one is more surprised by that than I am. For starters, I only started watching it for two, maybe three reasons: Arthur Darvill, Sara Lance, and to not miss out on any lore-building or continuity nods to the other shows (which, back then, were only Arrow, which I loved, and The Flash, which I liked quite a bit, but not enough to get all the hype for it). What’s more, I couldn’t stand Ray Palmer on Arrow (seriously, I even listed him as one of the many things that ruined season 3 for me), and I wasn’t at all interested in Captain Cold or Heatwave either: they were, in my opininon, unfairly lauded boring, one-note villains, just like every single other villain of the week on The Flash. So pretty much EVERYTHING was against Legends when it started, and season 1 didn’t inspire too much confidence either. But along the way, things started to shift imperceptibly. Ray became insanely likable, Snart and Rory were expanded and built upon as characters I could actually care about, and when season 2 got rid off all the deadweight and introduced Nate and Amaya to the cast, well, that was pretty much it. Couple that with Arrow’s increasingly dark storylines and stagnating quality, The Flash becoming pretty repetitive, as well as Supergirl’s subpar debut season, and Legends quickly became one of the shows I most looked forward to every week.

The show was never more fun when our heroes (sorry, legends) were chasing anachronisms through history, so I don’t mind that this season is going to follow a similar pattern. Instead of having to preserve important historical events, this time we have escaped magical creatures wreaking havoc across all of time and space,so each episode basically follows the same old well-tested pattern: identify problem, dress up in wacky clothes, break up into teams, accidentally cause more problems, make time for some meaningful character bonding, solve problem while learning some lesson about friendship or the world around you. What makes this show so exceptional is that this basic formula works every. Single. Time. And it does so with a more or less constantly revolving cast of characters. I doubt anyone ever missed Hawkman and Hawkgirl, but losing Snart, Rip, and especially Dr. Stein were much bigger blows. Jax could technically come back any time, and so could Wally, but I don’t think it’s in the cards anytime soon. Season 3 added Zari but eventually took away Amaya, and season 4 promised similarly big changes to the cast before it even started. Recurring character Ava, bit-player Constantine, and former villain Nora Darhk were all added as regulars, whereas Maisie Richardson-Sellers was set to return in a new role. Not all of this could be expected to be crammed into a single episode, of course. It actually took four weeks to re-introduce all these old-new faces, which is partly why I waited it out until I could write my first recap.

So let’s recap the first five episodes! As far as magical creatures go, so far we had a bloodthirsty unicorn, an evil fairy godmother, a shapeshifter, a shtriga, and a giant octopus monster conjured by the help of a magical notebook. The adventures themselves may not always have been terribly interesting – the first one, in particular, was a bit underwhelming, especially for a season premiere – but the characters more than make up for it. Constantine is a nice addition to the team. I wasn’t a huge fan of his eponymous show, in fact I quit it after only three episodes, but that was no fault of the character of the actor who plays him. I was excited when he was brought back for Arrow and since he fits in better with the Legends bunch than with Oliver’s team, I think it’s safe to say that he found a nice place for himself. He also immediately got a storyline of his own, which might be a leftover from from his own show, I’m not sure, but I’m interested to find out more about this mysterious force that’s tormenting him, and why. Ray and Nora are set up for a romance which I’m all for, but it’s currently being hindered by her giving herself up to the Time Bureau as a penance for all the things he did for his father, and while under Mallus’ influence. I don’t think she’s gonna stay there for the whole season, though, since that would be a pretty dreary storyline for a brand new series regular. The same reason is why I’m thinking that Ava is set to leave her desk job too, eventually, and join the team on the Waverider. The only reason she even qualifies as a regular for now is because Nate is also on desk duty, so we’re kinda required to check in on them every episode. The reason for Nate’s semi-absence is, of course, grounded in real life: Nick Zano’s wife had a complicated time giving birth, which caused both mom and baby to be hospitalized, and it’s understandable that he wanted to be with them. This can only be temporary though, especially since the in-universe reason for the break is pretty flimsy: Nate recently reconnected with his family and made amends with his father (he doesn’t know yet that the old man is up to something shifty), plus he has a hard time dealing with losing Amaya. I’m hoping it’s only a matter of time, though, before he grows bored at the Bureau and comes back to the ship (with Ava in tow, of course – maybe Gary can be the new director?), and then he can finally meet Charlie!

Charlie is… well, she’s really something. Remember when over the summer the writers confirmed that Amaya really, truly is gone from the show, but Maisie Richardson-Sellers will be back as a mysterious new supernatural character, and we were all like what…? Well, meet Charlie!

She’s the shapeshifter the legends set out to catch in episode three. She bonded with Ray quite a lot over the hour, and when she was trying to convince the gang not to send her back to hell, as they have to do with all the escaped magical creatures, she shifted into the form of someone Ray has earlier described to her as the conscience of the group: Amaya. And then Constantine took away her shapeshifting powers, so she got stuck looking like Amaya, except she’s actually a trash-talking cockney punk at heart so… it’s fun! The actress can now use a slightly exaggerated version of her natural accent, and she’s clearly having a great time playing this new character, who, as I’ve alluded to earlier, has yet to meet the guy who’s still in love with her lookalike, Nate Haywood. So that’s definitely something I’m looking forward to! We haven’t really seen what the overarching plot of the season is going to look like yet, but we finally got our first clue at the very end of episode five: Nate’s father calling someone and telling them that these captured magical creatures can be controlled. Hmm… I don’t want to speculate as to who it could be at the other end of the line, but I’m fairly certain it’s either someone we’ve met before, or someone new from the comics.